Monday, December 8, 2008

Eulogy for an Unknown

A friend of mine was killed in a car accident about two weeks ago. Well, I really shouldn't call him a friend because he was more of an acquaintance than anything. We had gone to middle school together for a couple years, and then when high school rolled around, he vanished from my quaint little teenage world. Whether he had dropped out or just transferred to another school is beyond me -- the point is, I knew him, and by educational means, he was connected to me.

Then, after I had graduated and began attending the nearby community college, this acquaintance of mine reappeared. I got a call one morning from my dad saying, "Your mom was in a car accident; she's okay, don't worry. She just bumped her head is all." Dad and I drove to the hospital, where Mom was recovering from a slight bruise to the head, but you could tell she was shaken up from the event. I really don't think she drives as casually as she did since then.

My mom was dropping my brothers off at school when out of the blue, this car careened into her, completely totaling the back end of our three-year old Toyota RAV4. Apparently, the guy driving his car hadn't bothered to scrape the ice off the windshield and was leaning his head out the window so he could see. Obviously, he didn't spot my mom's car in his general direction. Nobody was seriously injured, but once I found out who the driver was, I did a double take and vomited all over the floor.

Okay, so not really. My realization was relatively clean.

Yeah, it was him. The guy from school. It's rather strange having someone vanish from your world and then quickly reemerge to preform some surprising act that will forever leave an impact. Sure, it had more of an impact on my mom than anything, but it affected me, too...little though it may be.

Months later, I saw him at a popular local pizza joint. He didn't recognize me, nor did he know he had crashed into our family car. I thought I had wanted to beat the living shit out of him, but I didn't. Really, the first instinct that came to mind was to ask him, hey, man, are you stupid? Who the hell drives with an iced-over windshield? Let that shit thaw out, yo! I'd give him the run-down, he'd say he was sorry, it won't ever happen again, and we'd go our separate ways.

That didn't happen.

Instead, I avoided all eye-contact, finished my pizza, and left the restaurant a few minutes later. I didn't hear from or about him until a phone call two weeks ago. It was my dad.

"Hey, do you know a [such-and-such]?" he asked.

"Yeah. Why? That's the guy I went to school with. The guy who hit mom."

"I thought so. Well, there's a thing in the paper about him. It says he was killed in a car accident."

Huh. Really now. You don't say.

My acquaintance was twenty years old. Like some goddamned magician, he did a disappearing act two times in my life, and twice did he reappear to shock the hell out of me. He spoke a little English when I knew him, though mostly Spanish to his actual friends. He was in some of my classes; I probably lent him some pencils and paper and him the same to me. We might have even played some Four Square. And now, because I didn't give him the rundown at that pizza place or give him a fucking black eye, he's dead. Dead and gone.

I've thought about this for a while. I don't blame myself, or try not to, at least. He was speeding and wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Same old story. But you know, I could have stopped this from happening. I mean, it would have made a hell of a story in the local paper: "Kid Starts Fight With Other Kid He Knew From Middle School -- Victim of Black Eye Learns Lesson." I probably would have been banned from that pizza place and done some jail time, maybe, but it would have been worth the goddamn effort to save his life.

And lately, the food at that pizza joint hasn't tasted all that great, either. Yes, it would have been a fucking noble sacrifice.

The noblest fucking sacrifice the world ever saw.

Rest in peace, guy. Thanks for letting me borrow those pencils in middle school. I never really thanked you for that.